Tone and intonation in Akan
- This chapter provides an account of the intonation patterns in Akan (Kwa, Niger-Congo). Tonal processes such as downstep, tonal spreading and tonal replacement influence the surface tone pattern of a sentence. In general, any Akan utterance independent of sentence type shows a characteristic down-trend in pitch. This chapter proposes that Akan employs a simple post-lexical tonal grammar that accounts for the shapes of an intonation contour. The unmarked post-lexical structure is found in simple declaratives. The downward trend of an intonation contour is shaped by local tonal interactions (downstep), and sentence-final tonal neutralization. In polar questions, an iota-phrase-final low boundary tone (L%) accounts for the intensity increase and lengthening of the final vowel compared to a declarative. Complex declaratives and left-dislocations show a partial pitch reset at the left edge of an embedded iota-phrase. Underlying lexical tones are not affected by intonation with the exception of sentence-final H-tones.
Author details: | Frank KüglerORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110503524-004 |
ISBN: | 978-3-11-050352-4; 978-3-11-048479-3 |
ISSN: | 1861-4191 |
Title of parent work (English): | Intonation in African Tone Languages |
Publisher: | De Gruyter Mouton |
Place of publishing: | Berlin |
Publication type: | Part of a Book |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2017 |
Publication year: | 2017 |
Release date: | 2022/09/08 |
Tag: | Akan; avoidance; complex declarative; constituent question; downstep; imperative; lax question prosody; low boundary tone; pitch register reset; polar question; prosodic phrasing; tonal neutralization |
Volume: | 24 |
Number of pages: | 41 |
First page: | 89 |
Last Page: | 129 |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 410 Linguistik |
Peer review: | Referiert |